The capital scooped up 32 out of the 50 places, with several more firms dotted around London’s periphery in places like Surrey. Cambridge meanwhile fielded only a few successful firms, although a few London companies were daughter companies of bigger US-based giants.

The list, released today for the first time, is designed seek out the best European companies dealing with financial tech innovation.

“The FinTech sector has enjoyed incredible growth in recent years, particularly here in Europe where a slew of new technologies and product offerings are disrupting the traditional banking models and changing the way we consume financial services,” said Eddie Harding, head of FinTech at ICON Corporate Finance.

“FinTech innovation is transforming financial services in a whole host of different verticals, with new businesses challenging directly for a share of the fastest evolving sectors such as mobile payments, low-latency trading, banking alternatives, Big Data analytics, ID and security and many more.”

The event is judged by panelists from big names in tech, media and finance, including Silicon Valley Bank, Hotwire and the CEO agenda.

Interactive Investor

IWOCA: Instant Working Capital

Ixaris

Kurtosys

MarketInvoice

Mi Pay

MPowa

Nutmeg

Pensions First

Perseus Telecomes

Seedrs

SmartStream

TBricks

The Currency Cloud

Thunderhead.com

TransferWise

Vega Chi

VocalLink

World First

Zopa

Fin-tech: the trends

Despite insisting that no particular FinTech field would be favored, several key trends emerged.

Several firms focusing on the easing up of foreign currency exchange and transfer made the list, as did a significant number of companies striving to make mobile payments accessible and efficient – be it through phones or credit cards.

“The Currency Cloud is delighted to be recognised as one of the top fifty FinTech firms in Europe. The Currency Cloud securely processed over $1bn of transactions in 2012 for hundreds of customers,” Mike Laven, CEO of London-based online foreign exchange company The Currency Cloud told LondonlovesBusiness.com.

“European businesses are demanding lower prices and better service for their international transactions and The Currency Cloud is right at the forefront of this trend.”

The company has just launched two apps to ease the transaction process for customers and expects to follow on with many similar products in the near future, Laven explained.

However, firms working on short-term, small-scale loans also performed well, with London firms Zopa and Wonga making the list. Various kinds of crowd-funding mechanisms also made a strong showing, with companies like Funding Circle and CrowdCube making the index.